Volume 41, Issue 1

Starting from Heinrich Deterings thesis that Andersen can be seen as a modern poet who looks back to romantic past, the article tries to analyse his concept of history and (hi)story telling. Andersen's historical narrative is reconstructed by analysing the noticeable number of historical references within Andersen's book as well as their specific kind of structure. To get an idea of Andersen's approach on history and its narration, these references are put into a systematic order. It is argued that Andersen's historical narrative is composed of a specific combination of the principles of arbitrarity, linearity and cyclism. The article closes with a broader view on the historical and philosophical background of Andersen's concept of history.

In his novel Populärmusik från Vittula (2000), Mikael Niemi uses the regional background of a remote area in the far North of Sweden to address universal themes such as growing up, identity and communication. The theme of linguistic identity in particular illustrates how Niemi refers to both biblical and secular myths to show the universal in the local. By evoking the biblical myths of Babel and Pentecost, Niemi transcends the geographical confines of his novel and shows the search for language and understanding to be not just a local, but a global, universal concern. The linguistic fragmentation of Pajala reflects the problems of mutual understanding of human civilization per se. The Pentecost vision of universal communication through artificial languages or through popular music as secular equivalents of the biblical myth, is ultimately revealed to be an illusion. By ironically citing the myths he refers to, Niemi questions their potential as explanatory models for human behaviour and the human condition.

Social status is often reflected in the pronominal address forms of languages with two-choice systems, such as Old Norse. These languages utilize different pronouns to distinguish between formal/unfamiliar and informal/familiar addressees. In Old Norse, the pronouns þú and þér express this distinction. However, conversation partners sometimes break the understood rules governing formal/informal usage – sometimes there is a shift from the formal to the informal and vice versa. This leads one to wonder why the shift occurred, what it reflects about the course of the conversation, what effects it may have on the outcome of the conversation, and how the participants react to the switch. I argue that these shifts can be explained within an independently motivated sociolinguistic framework.